Ailsa Maxwell (Née Macdonald) (16 December 1922 – 10 February 2020) was a British

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

code breaker and historian.

Early life and education

Ailsa Giles Macdonald was born in

Gourock Gourock ( ; gd, Guireag ) is a town in the Inverclyde council area and formerly a burgh of the County of Renfrew in the west of Scotland. It was a seaside resort on the East shore of the upper Firth of Clyde. Its main function today is ...

on 16 December 1922, to Douglas Macdonald a railway manager, and his wife Grace, a school teacher. The family moved to London when her father was transferred to

Euston Station Euston railway station ( ; also known as London Euston) is a central London railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, managed by Network Rail. It is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line, the UK's busiest inter-city railw ...

, and Ailsa began her schooling in the city. She completed her schooling at

Dumfries Academy Dumfries ( ; sco, Dumfries; from gd, Dùn Phris ) is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about by road from ...

, and then took up a place at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

in 1942 to study economics.

Bletchley Park

After completing the first year of her economics degree with distinction, Maxwell planned to join the

WRENS Wrens are a family of brown passerine birds in the predominantly New World family Troglodytidae. The family includes 88 species divided into 19 genera. Only the Eurasian wren occurs in the Old World, where, in Anglophone regions, it is commonly ...

, however she was approached by the Foreign Office in the summer of 1943, and invited to interview for an unspecified job. A fellow student of History at her university,

Cecily Giles Cecilia Elspeth Giles CBE (18 September 1922 – 19 April 2020) was a Scottish university administrator and a Bletchley Park veteran. Life Giles was born in Dumfries, Scotland to Dr and Mrs Falconer Giles. Her father was a Reader in Ancient G ...

, was also made a similar offer. She and Maxwell accepted the offer and Maxwell was appointed to work as a Temporary Assistant at Station X, the UK's

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

code-breaking centre at

, in

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-eas ...

. She was billeted in a house with

Wolverton Wolverton is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, England. It is located at the northern edge of Milton Keynes, beside the West Coast Main Line, the Grand Union Canal and the river Great Ouse. It is the administrative seat of Wolverton and G ...

along with a group of other young women. After receiving two weeks training, Maxwell was appointed to Hut 6 where she worked in the Block D machine room. Maxwell was responsible for compiling menus from information obtained by other huts and inputting it to the electro-mechanical codebreaking

Bombe The bombe () was an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The US Navy and US Army later produced their own machines to the same functiona ...

, as part of the effort to decipher the Germans' Enigma code. Speaking to the Bletchley Park Oral History project, Maxwell described her work as follows.

"Our main job was, when a stop from the Bombes satisfied the way it had been set up, we then set this up on the Enigma machines to see whether it was right. We didn't know German, but it was obvious whether what came out was nonsense or made sense. I enjoyed it when we made up programmes, it was fun and something unusual to do."

On the night of 7 May 1945 Maxwell was working along with

Asa Briggs Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs (7 May 1921 – 15 March 2016) was an English historian. He was a leading specialist on the Victorian era, and the foremost historian of broadcasting in Britain. Briggs achieved international recognition during his lon ...

of the Intelligence Corps when the station received the uncoded message from Hitler's successor and President of Germany, Admiral Karl Dönitz, announcing Germany's unconditional surrender. Maxwell's service at Bletchley Park ended the following day on 8 May 1945,

VE Day Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Easte ...

. She was required to sign the

Official Secrets Act An Official Secrets Act (OSA) is legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security but in unrevised form (based on the UK Official Secrets Act 1911) can include all info ...

and did not speak about her experiences until some time after the work of the code-breaking operation was

declassified Declassification is the process of ceasing a protective Classified information, classification, often under the principle of freedom of information. Procedures for declassification vary by country. Papers may be withheld without being classif ...

in 1974.

Post-war research career

Immediately after the war Maxwell returned to Scotland to finish her Economics degree at the University of Edinburgh and assist with the

1945 General Election The following elections occurred in the year 1945. Africa * 1945 South-West African legislative election Asia * 1945 Indian general election Australia * 1945 Fremantle by-election Europe * 1945 Albanian parliamentary election * 1945 Bulgarian ...

in Scotland. She then worked for a period as a researcher at the

Department of Health for Scotland Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military * Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

. Later, Maxwell worked as a research assistant in the University of Edinburgh's Department of Economic History, where she worked on a project led by

Michael Flinn Michael Walter Flinn (22 October 1917 – 28 September 1983) was a British economic historian. Born into a middle-class family in Chorlton-on-Medlock, he was educated at William Hulme's Grammar School in Manchester, serving as an officer in the R ...

that led to the publication of ''Scottish Population History from the 17th Century to the 1930s''. Following this, Maxwell worked at the

General Register Office for Scotland The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) ( gd, Oifis Choitcheann a' Chlàraidh na h-Alba) was a non-ministerial directorate of the Scottish Government that administered the registration of births, deaths, marriages, divorces and adoptio ...

. She also undertook a number of research projects with her husband, including the history of Scottish

silversmith A silversmith is a metalworker who crafts objects from silver. The terms ''silversmith'' and ''goldsmith'' are not exactly synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product may vary gre ...

s and goldsmiths, and together they translated the diary of George Home (1660-1705) from Berwickshire.

Personal life

While completing her degree at the University of Edinburgh, Maxwell met her husband Stuart Maxwell, who went on to become deputy keeper at the

National Museum of Scotland The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in ...

. The couple married in 1953 and had two sons, Ian and Sandy. For much of their lives, Maxwell and her husband lived at Dick Place in The Grange area

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. Maxwell was pre-deceased by her husband and spent the final year of her life in care in

Portobello Portobello, Porto Bello, Porto Belo, Portabello, or Portabella may refer to: Places Brazil * Porto Belo Ireland * Portobello, Dublin * Cathal Brugha Barracks, Dublin formerly ''Portobello Barracks'' New Zealand * Portobello, New Zealand, on O ...

. She died on 10 March 2020, at the age of 97.

In fiction

Maxwell's war-time experiences at Bletchley Park, partially inspired the novel ''The Amber Shadows'' by Lucy Ribchester.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maxwell, Ailsa Bletchley Park people Bletchley Park women British historians British women historians 1922 births 2020 deaths Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Foreign Office personnel of World War II